The Book of Trouble: A Romance
by Ann Marlowe
Harcourt, $179
Many of us have a love affair in our past that, had we looked at it from the outside as a disinterested observer, we would have quickly concluded was doomed to end catastrophically.
Ann Marlowe's romance with a man she identifies as Amir, chronicled in The Book of Trouble: A Romance, is one such affair. Marlowe, who is Jewish, in her late 40s, an ex-heroin user who loves sex with strangers, is drawn to Amir, a man 10 years younger, Muslim and an Afghan expatriate. Had The Book of Trouble merely confined itself to her physical affair it would have been suitable only for the Sex and the City demographic, but Marlowe's ambitions range further than detailing a romance gone wrong.
Marlowe meets Amir in 2002, just one month before she is scheduled to go to Afghanistan on a teaching assignment. Over the following weeks, their friendship turns into a torrid and loving affair. All is not bliss, however, as Amir treats her warmly when they are alone but is distant in public - not to mention occasionally announcing his desire to sleep with her friends. Marlowe's desire for Amir is such that even when he announces he's seeking a virgin for an arranged marriage and plans to return to Afghanistan in the near future, she refuses to see that the affair can't end well.